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Yes! I seldom do any kind of reviews because the whole internet is FLOODED with them, but I can't help myself this time. Maybe part of it is the need I feel to immortalize its beauty and shiny sparklyness? Gold and sparkles and greens and coppers, what’s not to love, says my inner magpie.

I kind of keep up with the beauty industry, mostly makeup, because I think it’s fun and makes it easier to not buy stuff (somehow that works?) and partly because it’s nice to fall asleep to news that doesn’t include violence and death. But when I first saw this palette, perhaps a little bias against Too Faced and their somewhat... shaky quality of limited edition eyeshadows, I thought to myself “NICE PACKAGING, but that doesn’t make me buy an eyeshadow palette”. Then I saw Beauty News destroy it and thought “Nice metallics, but I already have a heap of those so that doesn’t make me buy an eyeshadow palette”. Then I saw someone try it out and still thought, “It’s nice, but I won’t buy it”.

THEN, I watched a review video complete with swatches, close-ups and try-on look. And then I bought it.

Ahem.

Yeah, it was kind of hard to justify of course, I didn’t NEED it, and even though I had googled lots of pictures and rummaged through my own collection of eyeshadows and decided that it has its place among my shadows, I still felt kind of guilty for ordering stuff I don’t really need. But then I got it delivered, and tore open the box, and managed to get the thing out of its packaging without breaking it. Opened it, and that whiff of that chocolate pudding powder (it definitely doesn’t smell like actual chocolate, I don’t know what kind of chocolate americans eat ;) scent, which is nice! I nervously put my finger in one of the metallic shades and oh. Oh.

I bought it four weeks ago and since then I’ve used it exactly every single time I’ve put on makeup, which is about 20-ish times. Only the crazy pink one and the bluey silver one is untouched, and the last one mentioned will probably remain so, as I’m not a particularly big fan of neither blue nor silver.

The metallics work with a brush but as I’ve figured, they’re better off with a sponge applicator or just your fingers. The matte shades blend like a dream with my regular brushes even if I happen to dust on a little too much (that happens A LOT). Perfection I say!

Under halogen lights

The shades Love & Cocoa and Classy & Sassy looks the same in the palette men on the skin they’re quite different. Holla for a dolla could be a tad more olivey green but mostly turns into a darker brown on the lid, and the light Rollin’ in dough is just a little too light for me to mindlessly use it as a base and a little too dark for use as an inner corner highlight. The dark purple one is a little whimpy but it’s fine with a bit of work. The above points are the worst things about this palette, totaling into a GOOD GRADE!

So, final judgement: I use it ALL THE TIME, I love the colours (apart from the bluey silver) and the mattes are super blendable and nice. It smells nice and lasts all day on me with my NYX eyeshadow primer (works better for me than both Too Faced’s and Urban Decay’s, bleh). The palette has a great big mirror and the packaging is lovely to have in my makeup stand. I’m actually giving away a bunch of my other metallic eyeshadows because I feel like these are all I need nowadays.

It is still available for purchase on Sephora in Sweden, for way too much money.

Living with the Gods on BBC 4 med Neil McGregor. This is no longer an active podcast but there are 30 fifteen minute long episodes, taking on the subject of man and her relationship to the gods. Objectively and in a very British fashion they press so much information in those fifteen minutes as possible and it’s one of those podcasts that I can listen to without doing anything else at the same time.

Casefile is a true crime pod with Australian descent that does objective but relaxed storytelling without the unnecessary drama that some pods add to their telling (for example, the reason why Sword & Scale isn’t on this list). It’s well researched and with the charming Australian accent makes this a favorite pod. Of course, it’s about terrible crimes and their victims, but I’m no better than all the other true crime fans out there and can’t help but to listen to the misery.

My Dad Wrote a Porno. Of course, My Dad Wrote a Porno has to be on this list. After all, it’s the only pod I’ve listened to in its entirety twice. Jamie Morton, the creator of the pod, was handed a manuscript of a book that his father had written and for some reason wanted his son to see, and Jamie realized that this had to be shared with the world. So it was, together with two dear friends he reads Rocky Flintstone’s books about Belinda Blumenthal and her unreasonable colleagues. Don’t worry about the cringing, Jamie’s friends will catch all the feelings you experience and say them out loud, which makes things feel better. Can recommend if you’re not afraid to laugh uncontrollably/visibly cringe to yourself or in public on your means of transport. Season four is due 2018! Excited!

There! That was my favorite list of pods that I listen to the most. There’s more, and I’ve added more that I haven’t listened to enough to make a judgement of yet. I love podcasts, it’s great. I listen to all these through the Apple podcast app so I don’t know where you might find them otherwise, I’m sure they’re everywhere. Spotify has a podcast tab nowadays, greatness!

It’s an ever changing jungle of podcasts coming and going, so I hope I’ve added some value your search for something nice to listen to in the daily grind of transports, walks and house work! Happy listening!

Even if I often feel like a sighing stone age man when confronted with new technology and it’s speeding information flows and inability to put the shit down and do something in real life, there’s some parts of the daily technology access that are dear to me. I appreciate all sorts, from parts of the social medias to spending a Friday night lying on my couch, digging deeper and deeper into archaeological search databases (Fornsök på Riksantikvarieämbetet!) just to see where the nearest grave mound is located.

But medias that makes me free from staring at a screen does have its obvious use to me too, those medias that allows me to do real life stuff without getting bored for real, like walking somewhere. Or cleaning. Or folding laundry. Of course, it’s podcasts that I’m talking about. Audio books have their place too, but in the everyday life of mine, the podcasts win. So I just thought I’d share my favorite podcasts with you guys, because “everyone’s a journalist nowadays”, right?

And, if you see me with headphones, laughing to myself in a random corner like a mad person in a grocery store, it’s most probably one of these shows that tickles my ears.

The descriptions of the Swedish podcasts I’ll leave in Swedish because ya know, if you don’t understand Swedish you’re maybe not that interested anyways.

True Murder: "The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them". Dan Zupansky is the host of this podcast and with his ever awkward interview style, he talks to authors of books that tell stories about crimes and their victims. The episodes, because they’re based off of interviews, vary in quality. How much we actually get to know about the stories are up to the authors and some of them don’t want to reveal all in a pod, but to sell the book instead which is understandable. Overall, it’s interesting stories that are told and it’s a good one.

In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg, BBC Radio 4. Melwyn dives into new areas in every episode together with guests that have a deeper understanding of the subject, which naturally varies widely. The conversations are incredibly British and I love it, with their understated kind of humor and kept-togetherness. Interesting areas of conversation makes this a favorite and one of the pods I’ve listened to the longest, at least four years by now! Then, when they joke around with each other, still understated and very British, just cracks me up. Love it!

Here I have an English version on top, and a Swedish one at the bottom.

When he said ”You may have endometriosis. I’d like to check up on that. It’s not normal to experience pain every day” he was the first one in four years to take me seriously. The average time from when the symptoms appear until diagnosis is settled, is around eight years. My four years was the fast lane.

After being dismissed by midwives, chief physicians, OB-GYN’s, gynecologists and doctors, I finally got the answer I had been searching for. I wasn’t just making shit up or exaggerating the normal standard of “feeling the different phases of your menstrual cycle”. Bah. And somehow, it was also extra annoying that the first person to take me seriously was a man, when all the earlier dismissals had been done by women.

But with the laparoscopy surgery that was suddenly done a couple of weeks late came the surgeon’s opinion; “I really understand that you’ve been in pain”, but with the recognition and the diagnosis followed desperation. When I lay there on my couch, super sore from the surgery and googled endometriosis, I found forums, support groups, groups for family of endometriosis sufferers. No solutions. And then it kind of hit me. I’m never getting rid of this.

Fast forward to six years later, and I’m at the stage where I and my doctor have tried getting me menstruation free for a year, without succeeding. The summer before the last the pains started changing character and I didn’t really keep up. First we tried putting me into the classic chemical menopause but it didn’t work, I still bled but just six weeks apart and lots of it. So I quit that.

The following months were the worst I’ve had so far. It just started off as regular annoying cramps and sort of morphed into the worst pains I’ve experienced. Every 30 seconds pains seared through my stomach and ended up sitting completely still on my couch for two days before I could move around a little. I actually took the following days officially off of work and went home to a friend and sat on his couch instead until Wednesday, when I could move more freely again. It seems my endometriosis has spread into tissues and reacts to bowel moments, ever so little ones.

When it repeated itself the month after I called the hospital crying, and I couldn’t take anymore. I didn’t want to call because the only solution is birth control pills, and I can’t with birth control. Under hormones, I lose everything that is me, the depression comes with all its ugly symptoms of not wanting to see anyone, lose the motivation for anything. The sex life fades and I stop getting in touch with people. The last time I ate birth control pills I felt completely blank inside for three months before I stopped taking and suddenly, life returned to me.

But that isn’t an option now. It’s too bad. I have to treat it with hormones. And the consequences are here. I’ve kept a close eye on it in fear that the hormonal depression would appear again, and even then I somehow managed to miss it. It wasn’t until I realized I sleep 13 hours a day that I got it. It’s here.

My only option is to try another type of hormones but I’m terrified. Right now, it comes and goes. Some days are fine and some days are clad in darkness. Sometimes I look at my new infatuation and feel that something’s missing, and just go to bed because I can’t bother being awake. Other days I’m in love, horny, happy, motivated and hopeful. If I change the type of birth control pills, maybe the good days I have now disappear. Like earlier, maybe only apathy will remain. I don’t know.

And what happens after six more months of hormonal depression?

Sometimes it feels like a cruel punishment, being happy and normal under the weight of the hormones. I fantasize about a little cottage in the countryside with a plum tree, I know that under all this I’m in love like a teenager. The feeling that I won’t get to experience the joy of all this and things to come weighs on me. The hope that I will find a type of birth control that I can handle is small because all the types I’ve tried so far has done the same thing; depleted my happiness.

To live with this asshole disease, I have to snuff out the flame of a life in happiness.

One of my favorite medias on the internet, second after the blog, has been Instagram. It’s been something that’s just nice with Instagram. Pictures posted by people on the fly, or pimped out ones taken with DSLR’s, which ever. I could find anything, follow interesting accounts and put up my own material there. I can still do this, but it’s heading south as fast.

I have bitched about this before but it’s time for it again, sorry. When I found out that Facebook were buying Instagram, I was genuinely disappointed. I know what happens when Facebook get their hands on things; It turns to shit. Because even though I do understand the whole idea with the social media method of capturing people and getting them to spend even more time on there to get as much commercial exposure as possible, I think that Facebook has refined the annoying elements of this business plan to the point of uselessness.

Facebook in itself I use only because of groups and events. The rest is unusable because of all the spammy crap that’s added to my feed. Now, a couple of years into Facebook owning Instagram, it’s started there too.

I got angry yesterday when I finally realized that my beloved Instagram is ruined. I once again got a push notification about a user answering a comment on a post that I had commented on. The problem with that notification, and all the other ones I get at least once a day, is that the poster isn’t answering MY comments, just other people’s comments. Why do I get a notification about that? I’ve looked through the settings, there’s no option to shut that shit down without shutting the notifications on when people actually answer –me- too.

The Facebookification in its most useless form.

Of course, the whole thing started when they introduced the algorithms that are supposed to sort my feed for me, which makes me miss out on things I actually want to see but it’d had to fly because I had no other options.But yesterday, in the fit on annoyance, I went through my feed and did a count. Every seven post is an ad. If you then add the algorithm that sorts FOR ME (hah), the “Recommended”-posts, “Suggestions”-posts, “Look, here’s the stories that you willingly skipped out on a few seconds ago!”-post, the things that I actually WANT TO SEE is totally drowned out – my friends’ posts!

Oh...

I have complained before, but I do think it’s done now. I can’t handle it, it’s too much stuff clogging up my feed. For God’s sake, there’s an ENTIRE TAB just for posts from people I don’t follow, why don’t put that shit there instead of people cutting into sand or mixing glitter into slime? I would GLADLY go into there often to check and see if I could find something new and exciting to follow, but now that shit is forced down my through in my feed instead, when I just want to look at my friend’s pictures.

But why?

It’s just too difficult for me to get what I want out from the media. This may sound like a trivial problem but Instagram has been my most prominent space on internet since 2010. I’ve had a blog in different forms since 2005 but the mobile medias are obviously much more popular among people in general.

But if I lose Instagram, what do to then? Will I make it with just my blog? Will I be lonely?

Yes. The excitement is total. Within a short period of time, chaos will ensue in this little apartment. Because if I’m lucky, I will get a shelf system from Ikea delivered to my home this Friday! It’s the classic Ivar that’s gonna make an entrance in my life since the 80’s, and I’m ex. Cite. Ted.

Because it’s not only three shelves, no! It’s a creativityinspirational, administrative, personalizational (yes, making up words so excited!) all around solution for my home life. It’s gonna be tinted in a antique brown shade and get adapted to my needs, and only mine! Computer and books are moving in, a work surface where I don’t need to clear things away in the middle of the process because I need the surface for something else will be installed, and will encourage me to get a little planlessly creative. Maybe even some space for dinner parties will fit?? And of course, it’s has to meet the needs for this advanced household of 28 square meters. Ahem.

No okay, but it’s almost true. It’s been a calm year, and it’s been in my taste. I’ve gotten to know new wonderful people, been moved to tears by loved ones, made a fool of myself, celebrated life, gotten my own apartment and worked. And gotten a little drunk now and then. Perfect! Now we throw ourselves out into the unwritten void that is the new year and see what it has to offer.

Ellet

Welcome to my blog!

I'm a 30-something that go under the name Ellet. I'm from Sweden and I like old things, DIY's, small projects, ranting, reflecting and throwing on makeup to the sound of podcasts. Here I just gather random stuff from my life that I think is worth saying out loud or just saving for myself. I haven't gotten very far yet but feel free to look around!